A water specialist says farmers need to take water use monitoring into their own hands ahead of a future conflict.

Hydrogeologic consultant Todd Feenstra with Midwest Water Stewards works with farmers in the Eastern Corn Belt to help monitor irrigation use.

“We need that data, we need to verify the models, there definitely is a crisis coming,” he says.

He tells Brownfield in Michigan a water withdrawal assessment was created in 2009 to evaluate impacts of large water withdrawals, but unfortunately, it has come with limited data collection.

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